4 Employee Health Red Flags Organisations Shouldn’t Ignore
Poor mental health is the most common cause of work-limiting conditions for those under 44 years, according to the Mental Health Foundation in the UK. Personal issues, stress, uncertainty, illness, and burnout impact employees’ mental and physical well-being at work.
Considering this is a common health issue that significantly affects the UK’s working population, organisations need to double their efforts towards employee well-being.
From initiating mental health awareness training for managers to raising awareness to conducting regular employee check-ins, companies can employ various ways to improve overall employee well-being in the workplace.
But how do you know if your employee is in distress?
Even though your employee may try to hide it, some tell-tale signs can say it all and some more. This article highlights the 4 red flags that signal to employers that your employee’s health needs attention.
1. Frequent Sighing and Feeling Overwhelmed
Sighing may seem like nothing at first, but frequent sighing can be a physical reaction to regulate breathing when the body is stressed and anxious. Even though your employees may not flag a distress call, their bodies will give out some non-verbal cues.
If a colleague or senior is seen sighing often, it’s probably a subconscious way of expressing negative emotions without verbally discussing them.
They may also look concerned and anxious the moment they’re assigned new tasks. These feelings may crop up because of being pressed for time, energy or capacity. They may not express their emotions out of fear of criticism or just because they feel awkward talking about it at work.
But it’s the responsibility of your company’s line manager or HR to try and offer help with the workload or provide support to minimise any overwhelming feelings.
2. A Drop in Performance or Work Quality
Multiple studies have pointed out a strong link between workforce productivity and mental health. The most common mental health conditions like anxiety and depression have a strong correlation to poor concentration levels, low focus, feelings of disengagement, and poor productivity levels.
However, the underlying mental health issue can often be mistaken for being tardy at work or carrying a negative attitude.
Let’s say an employee at your workplace is struggling to meet the deadline in spite of providing all the necessary resources and adequate time to complete the task. Perhaps they are struggling to motivate, concentrate or engage themselves despite their best efforts.
Health issues also impact the quality of work. If work quality is continuously dropping along with missed deadlines and overflowing workloads, it could signal an underlying issue.
In such cases, an empathetic approach from your organisation can help.
3. Increased Absences
It’s quite common for employees to take planned breaks to maintain a work-life balance. It’s also normal for them to take sick leaves to heal and recover from illness or injury.
If your employee is taking many short-term leaves time and again, by calling in sick or taking an erratic annual break, it's perhaps a sign that they’re struggling with their health. When they’re unable to put in the contracted hours of work week in and week out, it can imply that they’re struggling with their mood, workload or energy levels.
Increased absences from work may be a coping mechanism to take time away from work due to poor mental health. Your employees should never feel the need to take time away from work because their job is making them unwell or having a detrimental effect on their overall well-being.
Your HR team needs to be the first to notice these sudden and untimely absences.
4. Skipping Meals or Opportunities to Eat Socially
Post the COVID pandemic, the Royal College of Psychiatrists predicted the likelihood of a hidden pandemic of eating disorders that may have cropped up during the pandemic. Individuals struggling to feel in control may have used food to cope in those uncertain times of uncertainty, isolation and redundancy.
Eating disorders are still high, affecting between 1.25 and 3.4 million people in the UK, according to data published by Beat and Anorexia and Bulimia Care.
This means it’s highly likely that someone in your organisation is struggling with an eating disorder. It can be hard to recognise this condition, but certain behaviours and signs to watch out for include:
- making excuses to avoid social events that include food or eating
- growing irritable or having emotional outbursts around mealtimes
- increasing their caffeine consumption
- growing obsession with food, dieting and exercise
In Conclusion
While it’s heartening to see that increased awareness has helped reduce the stigma around mental health conditions, businesses in the UK still need to put in a lot of effort through resources, training and development initiatives, and open communication to support their workforce.
These four signs are only a few of the many red flags that organisations need to keep an eye out for. Establishing a forward-thinking workplace for your employees begins with closely monitoring any signs of poor health and well-being and taking the right action to support them.